AFAR Magazine / Playing by the Heart

When Photography Director and long-time friend Tara Guertin suggested that I photograph a project on Bluegrass music in my home state of North Carolina, I jumped on it. These are the types of assignments that I live for; combining sense of place, cultural studies, and memoir. Having grown up listening to bluegrass music, I loved learning new about new places and people through British author Emma John‘s eyes and experiences. Rather than simply illustrate a shot list, I took a lyrical approach, searching for objects, people, and scenes that might be in the songs. A one-armed guitarist, redheaded brothers with freckles, a wife with two husbands, smoke from a river-side campground, and sheets blowing in the wind… all visual manifestations from the music’s essence.

Text from this article became the seed of Emma’s novel Wayfaring Stranger: A Musical Journey in the American South.[-]